From the Northern Colorado Business Report (Steve Porter):
The water district felt confident enough in early April to increase a 50 percent initial quota set in October to 80 percent for Colorado-Big Thompson water share owners. A quota of 80 percent means each unit of C-BT water will yield eight-tenths of an acre-foot…
The 80 percent quota will make available a total of 248,000 acre-feet of C-BT water this year to its owners, which include 33 cities and towns, about 120 ditch and reservoir companies and around 1,800 individual allottees, according to Brian Werner, water district spokesman. Werner and [Karen] Rademacher said additional Western Slope snowfall after the 80 percent quota vote by the water district’s board of directors on April 9 has painted a much rosier picture than was foreseen mid-winter. “The numbers are definitely trending up,” Werner said. “We’re going into the (summer) with the highest storage in 10 years, and the soil moisture is way up.”
One example of this year’s heavy late season snow can be seen near Gould just across the Continental Divide in Jackson County. On May 24 the Colorado State Parks department reported that the Ranger Lakes, Bockman and North Michigan Reservoir campgrounds would remain closed through the Memorial Day weekend because of snowy conditions and the Crags Campground will be closed until July 1 because of still-deep snow…
About two-thirds of C-BT water is consumed by agriculture and the remaining third goes to municipal and industrial users. When it comes to ownership, Werner said those ratios are flipped, with cities owning two-thirds of the total 310,000 C-BT units and ag users owning about one-third.
Rademacher said another reason for the region’s water users to celebrate is the fact that most of April and the first part of May were cooler than normal. “It was cold,” she said. “The weather turned cold through much of April and stayed cold through mid-May, so that slowed the runoff.”
More Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District coverage here.